“You and your opponent attack each other. At the moment when he blocks your sword, you close in on him and make your sword stick to his. You must glue your sword to his as though it were impossible to make it come unstuck, but without putting too much force into it. In making your movements stick, you can never be too calm. You must distinguish between sticking and becoming entangled. Sticking is strong, becoming entangled is weak.”

“making your movements stick ” (nebari o kakuru) the description here is a more simple version than the one written in the Gorin no sho (book of water) written 4 years later.

It is also needs to be understood that we do not carry the sword today, so our body is the sword or the weapon that we would use, so to understand this in the modern day, is to take these principals and apply them to you Taijutsu training. I hope that you all enjoyed today’s lesson.